On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:16:19 -0500, singhals <singhals@erols.com> wrote: >Ian Goddard wrote: > >> singhals wrote: >> >>> But, I'd venture to suggest that out of any 100 genealogists at least >>> 51% _still_ want a program to record their conclusions so they can >>> print it out. >> >> >> If that wish were properly implemented things wouldn't be so bad. But >> when I get back to the mid C18th the only conclusion for quite a number >> of lines is "A or B" or even "A or B or C". >> > >Those aren't conclusions, IMO. Those are possibilities. > >> S/W which assumes that pedigrees can always be resolved unambiguously >> won't handle this situation. I can't believe that the situation is >> uncommon so how do users of such S/W cope? Do they simply stop entering >> their results when they get back to an ambiguity? Do they allow their >> S/W to dictate to them that they should choose what might at the time >> appear to be the most likely ancestor and discard the rest? Do they >> generate parallel universes of databases to handle all the alternative >> combinations? >> > >Generally, when I have _serious_ ambiguity and no way of >selecting which I think is most likely, I put all the >choices in the NOTES of the person who is the child of the >ambiguous party. > >Paper charts, and prose annotations, had the same limitations. > >What makes it more a problem in a computer database than in, >say, an index-card file or a letter? > >Cheryl I think your last statement indicates a disconnect we're seeing. "Most" of the people commenting in this thread have probably never done genealogy any other way than using a computer. -- Charlie Hoffpauir http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/